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It was an aggravating feature that the photograph produced of the machine showed the defendant riding towards a triangular warning sign warning of a pedestrian crossing 250 yards ahead of him, Mr Williams said.

Mike Gray, defending, said that his client had a clean driving licence and had no offences before or since.

He said: “138mph speaks of itself. I am not going to insult the court’s intelligence by attempting to condone this speed in any way.”

But apart from the approaching zebra crossing there were no aggravating features to the speed or he would have been charged with dangerous driving.

Maxwell had accelerated hard up an incline, it was very easy to get to such a high speed on his motorcycle, and it had not been for a great distance when he was caught on the footage, the court heard.

Mr Gray said: Maxwell, of Telford Road, Wellington near Telford, had not been speeding on the remainder of the journey or he would have caught on the many cameras that there were on the road from Shropshire,

Weather conditions were fantastic, clear and dry and he was using a motorcycle which was capable of stopping within the distance that he could see ahead of him.

He added that the offence was “entirely out of character” by an experienced motorcyclist who foolishly took his machine up to a very high speed.